Description
Book SynopsisExplores 150 years of Mexico's economic and rural development, a period when one of history's great empires was trying to extract more resources from its most important colony, and when an arguably capitalist economy was both expanding and taking deeper root.
Trade ReviewThis is a monumental work that will influence colonial historians of Mexico in the same manner as Brading, Bakewell, and Taylor have.... Impeccable in its scholarship, this work is elegantly written. * Latin America In Books *
Eric Van Young has written a major study of late colonial economic development, urban markets, and haciendas as economic institutions in the regional setting of central Jalisco…Students of early Latin American history will use this book often for its solid, clearly presented findings and for its many ideas about specific economic and social changes. It is an admirable step beyond all previous regional studies of land systems and economic change. -- William B. Taylor, University of California, Berkeley * Hispanic American Historical Review *
As a case study, the book confirms much of what has recently been documented for other areas of Mexico while adding significant new details. In terms of technique and ideas it is an important contribution to the field of colonial economic and social history. -- Herman W. Konrad * American Historical Review *
This is an excellent book. Colonial historians will long consider it required reading. -- Keith A. Davis * Agricultural History *
A thoroughly satisfying book… Eric Van Young is the first author to attempt to analyze the colonial agricultural economy from the perspective of a regional marketing area rather than that of the local producing unit… an excellent contribution holding significance for all researchers interested in the economic and social history of Mexico. -- James D. Riley * The Americas: A Quarterly Review of Latin American History *
This is an important, meticulously researched and elegantly written study of a neglected region. Van Young is to be praised for providing a working geographical definition of what is an 'economic region,' and for looking at relations between city and countryside from both angles. -- G. P. C. Thomson * Times Literary Supplement *
Table of ContentsChapter 1 Foreword Chapter 2 Introduction to the 25th Anniversary Edition Chapter 3 Introduction Part 4 Part I. The Human and Natural Environment Chapter 5 Chapter 1. The Guadalajara Region in Time and Space Chapter 6 Chapter 2. Demographic Change—Rural and Urban Part 7 Part II. Guadalajara as a Market: Urban Demand and Public Policy Chapter 8 Chapter 3. Meat Chapter 9 Chapter 4. Wheat Chapter 10 Chapter 5. Maize Part 11 Part III. The Flowering of the Hacienda System Chapter 12 Chapter 6. The late Colonial Hacienda—An Introduction Chapter 13 Chapter 7. Hacienda Ownership—Stability and Instability Chapter 14 Chapter 8. Hacienda Ownership—Sources of Capital Chapter 15 Chapter 9. Hacienda Ownership—Patterns and Value and Investment Chapter 16 Chapter 10. Hacienda Production—The Changing Equilibrium Chapter 17 Chapter 11. Hacienda Labor Part 18 Part IV. 'Desde Tiempo Inmemorial': Late Colonial Conflicts over Land Chapter 19 Chapter 12. Population Pressure in the Countryside Chapter 20 Chapter 13. Formation and Stability of the Hacienda Chapter 21 Chapter 14. The Clash
